1NC vs Zion

Off
 1
Interpretation: The Affirmative must defend an elimination of nuclear arsenals.

Eliminate means to completely destroy without any material remains.

Wordnik ND (Wordnik, Nonprofit English dictionary, “eliminate”, https://www.wordnik.com/words/eliminate) \\EGott
verb transitive To completely destroy (something) so that it no longer exists.

Arsenal refers to all nuclear weapons.

Los Alamos ‘9 http://www.lanl.gov/natlsecurity/nuclear/stockpile/ WHAT'S IN A STOCKPILE?
The stockpile, also called the nuclear arsenal, refers to a country's supply of readily available nuclear
weapons. The term nuclear weapons refers to the explosive warheads and the bombs and missiles that can deliver them to
enemy targets.

Nuclear weapons are explosive devices based on atomic fission or fusion.

Dictionary.com ND (“nuclear weapon”, https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nuclear-weapon) \\EGott
an explosive device whose destructive potential derives from the release of energy that accompanies the
splitting or combining of atomic nuclei.

Nine states have nuclear weapons.

World Population Review 11/4 (World Population Review, Database of population statistics and facts about IR,
4 November 2019, “Countries With Nuclear Weapons 2020”, http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-with-nuclear-
weapons/) \\EGott

What countries have nuclear weapons? In the world today, there are nine major countries that
currently possess nuclear weapons. Here is the list of all nine countries with nuclear weapons in descending order, starting with the
country that has the most nuclear weapons at hand and ending with the country that has the least amount of nuclear weapons: Russia, 6,850

nuclear warheads The United States of America, 6,185 nuclear warheads France, 300 nuclear warheads China, 280 nuclear

warheads The United Kingdom, 215 nuclear warheads Pakistan, 145 nuclear warheads India, 135 nuclear warheads Israel, 80

nuclear warheads North Korea, 15 nuclear warheads

Violation: The aff defends taking debate hostage.

Vote Neg:
1) Procedural Fairness—the topic mechanism is the only predictable stasis
for balanced prep. Their self-serving model explodes limits and allows
them to selectively skirt the topic to gain a competitive advantage by
radically re-contextualizing their affirmative in later speeches and
delinking all of our DAs and Ks.
2) Clash—Non-topical K affs should be rejected: Moots every LD topic in
existence and encourages non-applicative debates about structures that
preclude education about how said structures interact with the
elimination of nuclear arsenals. Debates about scholarship in a vacuum
are myopic and breed reactionary generics. By not defending a clear
actor and mechanism we lose 90% of negative ground. Topic specific
ground is intrinsic to nuanced K debates. They justify a world of debate
where All K v K debates become vacuous, and we never the minutia of
philosophical competition on both sides of the topic.
3) Tactics—abstract theorization is useless outside of concrete strategies to
implement them. Discussing the material and political dimensions of the
resolution are best to catalyze global radical movements.
Davis ’16 (Angela Davis, 2016, Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a
movement. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.) \\EGott

What can we do? How can we do it? With whom? What tactics should be used? How
should we define a strategy that is accessible to everyone, including a general public that has reached levels of
depoliticization that can make atrocities seem acceptable? What is our vision? How can we make sure “we”
are talking to “everyone”? How can we catalyze and connect sustainable, cross-border, and
radical movements? These are the types of questions that many activists ask themselves on
a daily basis, questions that are anchored in the present and will shape our future. It is easy to feel discouraged and
simply let go. There is no shame in that. We are, after all, engaged in a struggle that seems, if we look at it using a
mainstream political framework and through a mass media prism, unwinnable. On the other hand, if we take a step back,
look at things from a broader angle, reflecting on what is happening all over the world and the history of
struggle, the history of solidarity movements, it becomes clear, sometimes even obvious, that seemingly
indestructible forces can be, thanks to people’s willpower, sacrifices, and actions, easily
broken. When I first thought of producing a book with Angela Davis, my main goal was to talk about our
struggle as activists. To try to define it in real and concrete terms. To try to understand what it
means to people engaged in it. Where and how does it start? Does it ever end? What
are the essential foundations for building a movement? What does it mean physically,
philosophically, and psychologically?
 4) Reading afro-pessimism against another black debater is an independent
reason to drop Zion. If their uniqueness question is true that civil society
is formulated through an antagonism to the positionality of the slave
then their 1AC actively excludes black participation since there is no
grounds for contestation absent a negation of my own subjectivity. This
not only fractures black social formations but also demonstrates a
coercive element to the affs politics that proves that Zion was never for
black debate but here for the Win on tabroom.

Framing issue—They don’t get to weigh their affirmative – debate is a game and
we’re both here to win. This means that procedural questions like T come first.

TVAs—
1) Switch Side—SSD is not only crucial to debate’s reflexive nature, but also
generates critical thinking vital to question dominant structures of the
world. If their aff is incompatible an elimination of nuclear arms, read
the aff on the neg.
Harrigan ‘8 (Casey Harrigan, University of Georgia, Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 29, 2008, “AGAINST
DOGMATISM: A CONTINUED DEFENSE OF SWITCH SIDE DEBATE”, http://www.cedadebate.org/files/2008CAD.pdf#page=47) \\EGott

Although the value of competitive debating has been relatively uncontested, an important lingering question remains about how the
format of debates should be structured in order to maximize the pragmatic, pedagogical, and social benefits of the practice. A
structured activity that represents a microcosm of broader societal processes of deliberation,
debate has always been as concerned with how students argue (the process of debate) as it has been with
what is being argued about (the content). Traditionally, high school and collegiate debating has followed a switch-
side blueprint that requires students to argue both for and against a given topic during the course of a
season. As part of this process, it has been generally accepted that student debaters are allowed, if not encouraged, to “step outside
of the box” and gain additional insight into controversial issues during contest rounds by arguing on the behalf of positions that they
do not personally hold. However, with the emergence of increasingly widespread views that there are no isolated, neutral, and
apolitical training grounds for argumentation, the merits of such “switch side” debating practices have been called into question.
Some have argued that debaters should argue only from personal conviction because certain anterior concerns should be privileged
over debate itself or because debating both sides of controversial issues risks persuading students to support dangerous ideas.
Against these recent charges, many defenders of switch side debate have been silent. Yet, the
practice of stepping
outside of one’s own rigid beliefs and exposing their views to contrary arguments is one that still
has considerable value and ought to be firmly defended. Switching sides is a method that is integral to the
success of debate as a deliberative and reflexive activity. No other component process than switch
side debate contributes more greatly to the cultivation of a healthy ethic of tolerance and
pluralism, generates the reasoned reflection necessary for critical thinking, or instills responsible
and critical skepticism toward dominant systems of belief. The purpose of this essay is to mount a defense of
the validity of switchside debating in light of modern criticisms, drawing upon the existing body of literature related to the theory to
build a case for its continued practice. Practical, Pedagogical, and Social Benefits Switch
side debate (SSD) is an
argumentative model that requires students to debate both the affirmative and negative sides
of the resolution over the course of a multipleround tournament. In practice, SSD requires that debaters’ arguments are
frequently divorced from personal conviction; in many cases students are required by the topic to take a position and argue
vigorously on behalf of views that they disagree with. Debaters
with ideological beliefs are thrust into the
position of the Devil’s Advocate, assuming the side of the opposition and needing to understand
the arguments of the opposing view well enough to argue on their behalf . Instead of approaching the
debate topic from the perspective of personal belief, students often choose arguments from a strategic and competitive perspective.
Because of SSD, the
purpose of debate is not to convince others to accept a certain argument as
preferable or “true”, but rather to choose the strongest and most intellectually rigorous position that has
the greatest chance of prevailing under scrutiny (and thus earning a competitive victory). Policy debate, an activity with few formal
rules and requirements, developed this norm of arguing both sides of a topic for pragmatic, pedagogical, and social reasons.
Practically, the contemporary format of tournament contests would be much more difficult to maintain if the tournament directors
were not able to require that an equal number of competitors debate on the affirmative and negative in any given round. Were
students free to choose their own sides, it seems likely that debaters who held strong views for or against the statement of the
resolution would choose to debate exclusively on that side. Given the generally liberal leanings of the debate community and
inevitable biases in topic construction, an unequal division between the sides would be unavoidable (Cripe, 1957). This would make
pairing debate rounds much more difficult, if not impossible. While such pragmatic justifications for SSD are persuasive, they are
admittedly secondary to the greater consideration of pedagogy. Although it is certainly true that debate is a game and that its
competitive elements are indispensable sources of motivation for students who may otherwise be apathetic about academic
endeavors, the overwhelming benefits of contest debating are the knowledge and skills taught through
participation. The wins and losses (and somewhat-cheesy trophies), by and large, are forgotten with the passage of time.
However, the educational values of debate are so fundamental that they eventually become
ingrained in the decision-making and thought processes of debaters, giving them a uniquely
valuable durability. To this end, SSD is essential. The benefits of debating both sides have been noted by many authors
over the past fifty years. To name but a few, SSD has been lauded for fostering tolerance and undermining bigotry and
dogmatism (Muir, 1993), creating stronger and more knowledgeable advocates (Dybvig and Iversion, 2000), and
fortifying the social forces of democracy by guaranteeing the expression of minority viewpoints (Day, 1966). Switching sides is
a crucial element of debate’s pedagogical benefit ; it forms the gears that drive debate’s
intellectual motor. Additionally, there are social benefits to the practice of requiring students to debate both sides of
controversial issues. Dating back to the Greek rhetorical tradition and the tension between Plato and the Sophists, great value
has been placed on the benefit of testing each argument relative to all others in the marketplace of
ideas. Like those who argue on behalf of the efficiency-maximizing benefits of free market competition, it is believed that
arguments are most rigorously tested (and conceivably refined and improved) when compared to all
available alternatives. Even for beliefs that have seemingly been ingrained in consensus opinion or in
cases where the public at-large is unlikely to accept a particular position, it has been argued that they should remain
open for public discussion and deliberation (Mill, 1975). Along these lines, the greatest benefit of
switching sides, which goes to the heart of contemporary debate, is its inducement of critical thinking. Defined as
“reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do” (Ennis, 1987), critical thinking learned
through debate teaches students not just how to advocate and argue, but how to decide as well. Each
and every student, whether in debate or (more likely) at some later point in life, will be placed in the
position of the decision-maker. Faced with competing options whose costs and benefits are initially unclear, critical
thinking is necessary to assess all the possible outcomes of each choice, compare its relative
merits, and arrive at some final decision about which choice is preferable. In some instances, such as
choosing whether to eat Chinese or Indian food for dinner, the importance of making the correct decision is minor. For many other
decisions, however, the implications of choosing an imprudent course of action are potentially grave.
Although the days of the Cold War are over, and the risk that “the next Pearl Harbor could be ‘compounded by hydrogen’” (Ehninger
and Brockriede, 1978) is greatly reduced, themanipulation of public support before the invasion of Iraq in
2003 points to the continuing necessity of training a wellinformed and critically-aware public (Zarefsky,
2007). In the absence of debate-trained critical thinking, uninformed politicians and manipulative leaders
would be much more likely to draw the country, and possibly the world, into conflicts with incalculable
losses in terms of human wellbeing. As Louis Rene Beres writes, “with such learning, we Americans could prepare…not as
immobilized objects of false contentment, but as authentic citizens of an endangered planet” (2003). Thus, it is not surprising that
critical thinking has been called “the highest educational goal of the activity” (Parcher, 1998). While
arguing from conviction can foster limited critical thinking skills, the element of switching sides is necessary to
sharpen debate’s critical edge and ensure that decisions are made in a reasoned manner instead of
being driven by ideology. Debaters trained in SSD are more likely to evaluate both sides of an argument
before arriving at a conclusion and are less likely to dismiss potential arguments based on prior beliefs (Muir, 1993). In
addition, debating both sides teaches “conceptual flexibility ,” where decisionmakers are more
likely to reflect upon the beliefs that are held before coming to a final opinion (Muir, 1993). Exposed to many
arguments on each side of an issue, debaters learn that public policy is characterized by extraordinary complexity that requires
careful consideration before action. Finally, these arguments are confirmed by the preponderance of empirical research
demonstrating a link between competitive SSD and critical thinking (Allen, Berkowitz, Hunt and Louden, 1999; Colbert, 2002). The
theory and practice of SSD has value beyond the limited realm of competitive debate as well. For the practitioners and students of
rhetoric, understanding
how individuals come to form opinions about subjects and then attempt to
persuade others is of utmost importance. Although the field of communication has established models that attempt
to explain human decision-making, such as the Rational Argumentation Theory and others (Cragen and Shields, 1998), the practice of
SSD within competitive debate rounds is a real-world laboratory where argumentative experiments are carried out thousands of
times over during the course of a single year-long season. The theory of SSD
has profound implications for those
who study how individuals are persuaded, as well as how advocates should go about the process
of forming their own personal beliefs and attempting to persuade others.

Framing issue—Any DA to the TVA is an advantage to our model of debate since

that proves it gives teams more ground. We only need to win that the TVA
allows debaters to engage in their literature base. You should prefer
debatability over ideological perfection.

T is drop the debater—its key to deterring ineffective debate norms and

rectifying in-round abuse.

Education is a voter since it is the only thing that leaves this round.

Fairness is a voter since it is a constitutive element of the activity—it’s

impossible to engage in a round if debate is structurally skewed.
 2
The aff’s fantasy of movement towards the end of the world, proven by
Wilderson and Gillespie is cruel optimism which link turns their hostage holding
offense through the otherization of intercommunal strategies.
Walsh’15 |Shannon Walsh. "The Philosopher and His Poor: The Poor-Black as Object for
Political Desire in South Africa," Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, Volume 42,
Issue 1, 2015, June 17, 2015|KZaidi

While Rancie`re claims that the poor as object creates possibility for the philosopher , Frank
Wilderson goes further. Wilderson (2010) argues that the Human itself is forged through the
denial of humanity to the Black.5 Through situating the Black as anti-human, object and
voiceless, the Human is thus constituted. In South Africa, the Philosopher’s poor is also, always, Black. For the
academic Left, I would argue that there is a cruelly optimistic attachment or relation with a fungible
poor-Black. This optimistic relation is bound up with emancipatory, and sometimes pseudo-
revolutionary, desires for another possible world. This attachment or relation is not limited to
South Africa, but very often it is Black bodies (or the bodies of indigenous people) who are objectified for this
kind of fantasy to play out. The fundamental antagonism is one in which the poor-Black is a
repository for the projected desires and longings of (white) revolutionary fantasy—a strange
nostalgia of some impossible vanquished time that existed in the pure space of non-
knowledge. Lauren Berlant reminds us that your desire misrecognizes a given object as that which will
restore you to something that you sense effectively as a hole in you. Your object, then, does not express
transparently who you ‘are’ but says something about what it takes for you to anchor yourself in space and time. (2011, 110) This is
a romance between the Human and the necessarily non-Human, the Other, which is always fantasy. The poor-Black
becomes object onto which revolutionary desires can be projected and fantasized. For the
revolutionary fantasy to hold, they must remain in their wretchedness, must remain as objects denied
the complex existence—the being Human—enjoyed by those who hold the power of representation and fantasy
construction. Of course, the horrible irony of such a situation is that while the poor-Black as an object
of desire might offer an anchor for such ‘fantasmic investments’ towards a better world for
the Left, in so doing it effectively denies that world from ever appearing. For how can such a
world erupt from such a depraved and violent denial of being? The fantasy of the fungible poor-
Black is a romance full of optimism and aspirations, as well as full of dangerous denials and
objectifications. Ultimately it is also a romance like any other: full of false hopes, good intentions and lots of fantasy (Bob
2005; Levenson 2012). The implication of leaving behind revolutionary subjectivities as vestibules for
political optimism and hope is difficult, but it must be done. Indeed a critique of the ways social
movements, and the poor Black, have been constructed , and at times desired, in Left academia is
crucial, and one that I hope will open spaces for reimagining what solidarity could look like. This
is no easy task. As Berlant (2013) reflects, All political movements ... are complicated spaces where the courageous insistence on
interrupting the reproduction of toxic normativity is a relief from resignation to life. But every movement that we’ve ever been in
reproduces issues of inequality around race, gender, sexuality and education, along with the inevitable personality glitches. That also
can be devastating. Berlant encourages a dose of humour to counter the devastation, to laugh at the foibles, missteps and false
romances. I sincerely hope that the fantasy can be abandoned, that there can be a way forward that will include a transparent
reflection on the nature and exercise of political power within and around social movements in South Africa, reflection that takes
seriously race, gender and institutional power.
Antiblackness writ large is a byproduct of structural notions of ressentiment -
racism is the symptom, Ressentiment is the pathology.
Ephraim’03 |Charles Ephraim, doctorate from Yale as distinguished Ford Fellow, professor at
Yale, currently associate professor of philosophy at Mercy College, (The Pathology of
Eurocentrism), pg. 1-2|KZaidi

It is commonly supposed that white racism is a disease of sorts, such that if white people would only come to
understand this, and just cure themselves, then black people would to a large extent and at long last be unshackled

from the chains of their subordination and oppression. Thus construed, racism has been singled out as the
culprit, the primary hindrance to black progress , the fundamental burden placed on the backs of black people. But this

argument is unsound because the basic premise – namely, that racism is a disease – is false. After a long and absorbing study of the
problem of white racism and black oppression, I have come to the contentious conclusion that racism is not the disease that it has been

made out to be, but a mere symptom of an underlying disease, a peculiar and uniquely European pathology

diagnosed by Nietzsche as ressentiment, and by Sigmund Freud as a cultural neurosis which characterizes European
civilization. Ressentiment is the fundamental burden of being black in a white-dominated
world. It is a disease that manifests itself in manifold and insidious ways, with racism being its most
overtly recognized form. Indeed, even racism is a cover to hide an essential aspect of this disease, namely, a
desperate and obsessive need for self-aggrandizement. This obsessive need for self-aggrandizement has
given rise to a host of problems constitution the so-called “pathology of black life conditions.” The “peculiar institution” of
slavery, the disempowerment of indigenous peoples by imperialism and colonialism, as well as the
infamous Jim Crow laws, and the prevailing system of anti-black discrimination, have all been

consequences of the white obsession with self-aggrandizement. Among the manifold ways of its expression, as we
shall see, ressentiment entails elements of xenophobia and misanthropy. It is the psychological project of racism to hide both of these entailments.
Racism would not be possible without xenophobia; and its ruthlessness in the service of imperialism and colonialism would
have been impossible without the misanthropy which it hides . Ressentiment has remained undetected
precisely because of its insidiousness, and because of our habit of interpreting phenomena from the surface. Thus, for example the victim blaming
psychology so well explored by William Ryan in his book blaming the victim (1971) has served effectively to mask the disease of ressentiment. In fact,
victim blaming is a form of psychological projection in which, as I shall show is an essential self protecting mechanism in the modus operandi of
ressentiment. And no one has suffered more from the victim-blaming syndrome than have black
people in a white-dominated world. I shall show why blac k people have been the most logically appropriate, though
profoundly unfortunate victims of the ressentiment projection. As victims of the white mans obsession with self-

aggrandizement black people have failed in their liberation efforts because of their lack of self
knowledge. This is not to cast aspersion on the collective intelligence of black people which would be absurd. Rather, it is to say that historically,
black people have been conditioned to think of themselves as quite other than they actually are:
they have been beaten, coerced, and cajoled into believing – or into professing belief in – these
falsehoods, which have been exclusively negative . These teachings, lessons in black inferiority,
have come from the Europeans with a single overriding motive, namely, their own self
aggrandizement, which necessitated the myth of black inferiority, has been the greatest
obstacle to black liberation and hence to any meaningful black progress.
Ask yourself – in a round where two black debaters are competing against one
another what is the radical potentiality of voting for Zion? Their performance in
this space is nothing but a coercive relationship between credit and debt that
calcifies anti black terror. White governance has hailed all of us into the space of
debate but the 1AC’s relationship to revolution destroys any possibility for
change because it re-affirms the condition of objecthood.
Moten and Harney 13 (Fred Moten, poet and scholar whose work explores critical theory,
black studies, professor of Performance Studies at New York University, Stefano Harney,
Professor of Strategic Management Education, Singapore Management University and co-
founder of the School for Study, “The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study”,
published 2013, pages 66-68)

We hear them say, what’s wrong with you is your bad debt. You’re not working. You fail to pay
your debt to society. You have no credit, but that is to be expected. You have bad credit, and that is fine. But bad debt is a
problem. Debt seeking only other debt , detached from creditors, fugitive from restructuring.
Destructuring debt, now that’s wrong. But even still, what’s wrong with you can be fixed. First
we give you a chance. That’s called governance, a chance to be interested, and a shot even at being disinterested.
That’s policy. Or we give you policy, if you are still wrong, still bad. Bad debt is senseless, which is to say it cannot be
perceived by the senses of capital. But there is therapy available. Governance wants to connect your
debt again to the outside world. You are on the spectrum, the capitalist spectrum of interests. You are the wrong end.
Your bad debt looks unconnected, autistic, in its own world. But you can be developed. You can get credit after all. The key is
interests. Tell us what you want. Tell us what you want and we can help you get it, on credit. We can lower the rate so you can have
interest. We can raise the rate so you will pay attention. But we can’t do it alone. Governance
only works when you
work, when you tell us your interests, when you invest your interests again in debt and credit.
Governance is the therapy of your interests, and your interests will bring your credit back. You
will have an investment, even in debt . And governance will gain new senses, new perceptions,
new advances into the world of bad debt , new victories in the war on those without interests,
those who will not speak for themselves, participate, identify their interests, invest, inform,
demand credit. Governance does not seek credit . It does not seek citizenship, although it is often understood to
do so. Governance seeks debt, debt that will seek credit . Governance cannot not know what might be shared,
what might be mutual, what might be common. Why award credit, why award citizenship? Only debt is
productive, only debt makes credit possible, only debt lets credit rule. Productivity always
comes before rule, even if the students of governance do not understand this, and even if
governance itself barely understands this . But rule does come, and today it is called policy, the
reign of precarity. And who knows where it will hit you, some creditor walking by you. You keep your eyes down
but he makes policy anyway, smashes any conservation you have built up, any bad debt you are smuggling. Your life
goes back to vicious chance, to arbitrary violence, a new credit card, new car loan, torn from
those who hid you, ripped from those who shared bad debt with you . They don’t hear from you again. The
student has no interests. The student’s interests must be identified, declared, pursued , assessed,
counseled, and credited. Debt produces interests . The student will be indebted. The student will be
interested. Interest the students! The student can be calculated by her debts, can calculate her debts with her interests. She is in
sight of credit, in sight of graduation, in sight of being a creditor, of being invested in education, a citizen. The
student with
interests can demand policies, can formulate policy, give herself credit, pursue bad debtors with
good policy, sound policy, evidence-based policy . The student with credit can privatize her own university. The
student can start her own NGO, invite others to identify their interests, put them on the table, join the global conversation, speak for
themselves, get credit, manage debt. Governance is interest-bearing. Credit and debt. Thereis no other definition of
good governance, no other interest. The public and private in harmony, in policy, in pursuit of
bad debt, on the trail of fugitive publics, chasing evidence of refuge . The student graduates. But not all of
them. Some still stay, committed to black study in the university’s undercommon rooms. They study without an end,
plan without a pause, rebel without a policy, conserve without a patrimony . They study in the university
and the university forces them under, relegates them to the state of those without interests, without credit, without debt that bears
interest, that earns credits. They
never graduate. They just ain’t ready. They’re building something in
there, something down there. Mutual debt, debt unpayable, debt unbounded, debt unconsolidated, debt to each other in
a study group, to others in a nurses’ room, to others in a barber shop, to others in a squat, a dump, a woods, a bed, an embrace. And
in the undercommons of the university they meet to elaborate their debt without credit , their
debt without count, without interest, without repayment. Here they meet those others who dwell in a different
compulsion, in the same debt, a distance, forgetting, remembered again but only after . These other
ones carry bags of newspaper clippings, or sit at the end of the bar, or stand at the stove cooking, or sit on a box at the newsstand,
or speak through bars, or speak in tongues. These
other ones have a passion to tell you what they have
found, and they are surprised you want to listen, even though they’ve been expecting you .
Sometimes the story is not clear, or it starts in a whisper. It goes around again but listen, it is funny again, every time. This
knowledge has been degraded, and the research rejected. They can’t get access to books, and no one will publish them. Policy
has concluded they are conspiratorial, heretical, criminal, amateur. Policy says they can’t handle
debt and will never get credit. But if you listen to them they will tell you: we will not handle
credit, and we cannot handle debt, debt flows through us, and there’s no time to tell you
everything, so much bad debt, so much to forget and remember again . But if we listen to them they will
say: come let’s plan something together. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re telling all of you but we’re not
telling anyone else.

Thus, we affirm logistical sabotage. Our refusal is an invitation for building

sentimentality together outside of state sanctioned determinations. Blackness
means creating a new feel in the hold that can only be understood through
hapticality, a countermethod to the affs self-defeating love that creates a feel
of new sociality, unbridled by the cruelty of other relations. A mode of care that
refuses the idea of solidarity predicated on terms where we have already been
defeated.
Moten and Harney 13 [Fred and Stefano, “The Undercommons”, Pg. 97-99]
Never being on the right side of the Atlantic is an unsettled feeling , the feeling of a thing that
unsettles with others. It’s a feeling, if you ride with it, that produces a certain distance from the
settled, from those who determine themselves in space and time, who locate them- selves in a
determined history. To have been shipped is to have been moved by others , with others. It is to
feel at home with the homeless, at ease with the fugitive, at peace with the pursued, at rest
with the ones who consent not to be one . Outlawed, interdicted, intimate things of the hold,
containerized contagion, logistics externalises logic itself to reach you , but this is not enough to get at the
social logics, the social poesis, running through logisticality. ¶ ¶ Because while certain abilities – to connect, to translate, to adapt, to
travel – were forged in the experiment of hold, they were not the point. As David Rudder sings,“how we vote is not how we
party.”The
hold’s terrible gift was to gather dispossessed feelings in common, to create a new feel
in the undercommons. Previously, this kind of feelwas only an exception, an aberration, a shaman, a witch, a seer, a poet
amongst others, who felt through others, through other things. Previ- ously, except in these instances, feeling was mine or it was
ours. But in the hold, in the undercommons of a new feel, another kind of feeling became
common. This form of feeling was not collective, not given to decision, not adhering or
reattaching to settlement, nation, state, territory or historical story; nor was it repossessed by
the group, which could not now feel as one, reunified in time and space. No, when Black Shadow sings
“are you feelin’ the feelin?’’ he is asking about something else. He is asking about a way of feeling through others, a feel for feeling
others feeling you. This
is modernity’s insurgent feel, its inherited caress, its skin talk , tongue touch, breath
speech, hand laugh. This
is the feel that no individual can stand , and no state abide. This is the feel we
might call hapticality.¶ ¶ ¶ Hapticality, the touch of the undercommons, the interiority of
sentiment, the feel that what is to come is here . Hapticality, the capacity to feel though others,
for others to feel through you, for you to feel them feeling you, this feel of the shipped is not
regulated, at least not successfully, by a state, a religion, a people, an empire, a piece of land, a
totem. Or perhaps we could say these are now recomposed in the wake of the shipped. To feel others is unmediated, immediately
social, amongst us, our thing, and even when we recompose religion, it comes from us, and even when we recompose race, we do it
as race women and men. Refused
these things, we first refuse them, in the contained, amongst the
contained, lying together in the ship, the boxcar, the prison, the hostel . Skin, against epidermalisation,
senses touching. Thrown together touching each other we were denied all sentiment, denied all the things that were supposed to
produce senti- ment, family, nation, language, religion, place, home. Though forced to touch and be touched, to sense and be
sensed in that space of no space, though refused sentiment, history and home, we feel (for) each other. ¶ ¶ A feel, a sentiment with
its own interiority, there on skin, soul no longer inside but there for all to hear, for all to move. Soul music is a medium of this
interiority on the skin, its regret the lament for broken hapticality, its
self-regulatory powers the invitation to build
sentimentality together again, feeling each other again, how we party. This is our hapticality, our
love. This is love for the shipped, love as the shipped .¶ ¶ There’s a touch, a feel you want more of, which releases
you. The clos- est Marx ever got to the general antagonism was when he said “from each according to his ability, to each according
to his need” but we have read this as the possession of ability and the possession of need. What
if we thought of the
experiment of the hold as the absolute fluidity, the informality, of this condition of need and
ability? What if ability and need were in constant play and we found someone who dispossessed us so that this movement was
our inheritance. Your love makes me strong, your love makes me weak. What if “the between the two,” the lost desire, the
articulation, was this rhythm, this
inherited experiment of the shipped in the churning waters of flesh
and expression that could grasp by letting go ability and need in constant recombination. If he
moves me, sends me, sets me adrift in this way, amongst us in the undercommons. So long as she does this, she does not have to
be.¶ ¶ Who knows where Marx got this inheritance of the hold, from Aristotle denying his slave world or Kant talking to sailors or
Hegel’s weird auto-eroticism or just being ugly and dark and fugitive. Like Zimmy says, precious angel, you know both our
forefathers were slaves, which is not something to be ironic about. This feel is the hold that lets go (let’s go) again and again to
dispossess us of ability, fill us with need, give us ability to fill need, this feel. We hear the godfather and the old mole calling us to
become, in whatever years we have, philosophers of the feel. ¶ ¶ ¶
Case